All Things Handmade

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Jayden got this cute little book for his birthday this year and the other day while reading it to him I noticed that Olga the Pig is made from fabric very very similar to some fabric that I have in my stash. Anyway, this got the wheels turning in my head and I thought I'd have a go at turning the picture in the book into an actual toy.

Since I only had the head in the picture to work with I started out by drawing what the rest of the body might look like. I am a TERRIBLE drawer so I'm not going to share my picture here but trust me, it looked pretty bad =p I then traced around the picture to get the body shape, cut out all my pieces and stitched them up, then turned it all in the right way and filled with stuffing.

This is the final result. It ended up looking not much like the original picture, and it's completely different to my terrible sketch, but the kids still love it so that's considered a success for me =p

This is my third attempt at making a giraffe and I finally got a result I'm happy with. The first one looked more like a dinosaur than a giraffe, the second one looked slightly like a giraffe but the head was all wrong, this one is much better! I made her using the same pattern that I used for the little lambkins with a few adjustments - longer and thinner legs, a thinner body, a rounded behind with the tail attached afterwards rather than the tail being part of the main body, a much much longer neck, a completely different head shape, and different shaped ears. Actually I don't think ANY of the original lamb pattern is in there.

I'm really unoriginal when it comes to naming things and usually everything ends up being called Mary or Molly so I looked up the Perth Zoo online and discovered that their female giraffe is named Misha, so my giraffe is going to be named after her :)

I have been wanting to make a giraffe for ages now but have never been able to find any giraffe print fabric, so there was some definite SQUEEE's when I found this giraffe fleece at Textile Traders. Very cheap too, it cost me $2.40 for 40cm off the bolt and I'll be able to make at least 5 out of that amount.

Friday, July 9, 2010

I got her to draw a picture of a doll, then I traced the outline onto some unbleached calico (leaving a seam allowance), cut out two identical pieces, sewed them together, turned it in the right way and stuffed it with some polyester fill, then let Ella loose with some permanant fabric markers! The hair is made from black wool and stitched down to secure it.

This was a really quick and easy project, and a lot of fun! I think it took us about two hours in total (and that's with me stopping for 30 minutes to talk on the phone lol) The hardest part was definitely the legs! Turning them back the right way after sewing the seams was hard enough, then getting the stuffing into them was near impossible! I had to slowly poke it in bit by bit with a pencil lol

Ella has named her 'Mary' so that she can look after the lamb I made yesterday ("Mary had a little lamb..." lol)

Thursday, July 8, 2010

How cute is this little sheepie!? I made her using patternbee's "Little Lambkin" pattern. I used fleece fabric instead of cotton though so she is super soft and snuggly. This one is Ella's and she has named her "Fleecie" lol. I'm in the middle of making another one, but this will be a blue one for Jayden. And if I'm not sick of them by the time I've finished that one I'll probably make one for each of my nieces and nephews too =p

Ella chose this wool herself and chose what she wanted me to make out of it - a beanie and some leg warmers. Note: They are supposed to be leg warmers but she seems to prefer wearing them on her arms lol.

No pattern for either of them, I just kinda winged it and luckily it all fits!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

After my last disasterous attempt at longies I was going to wait a while before trying again but then an hour later I changed my mind and got right back into it =p These ones turned out MUCH better. They fit him perfectly and I like the colours a lot better than the colours I was using for the first pair.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

On Friday night I started knitting Jayden a pair of longies and with the exception of a few minor setbacks it was all going well. I finished the whole top part and had done half of one leg, then this morning I tried them on him to see how they were fitting...

And they're too small :(

I can get his legs in but they are pretty snug around his thighs and I wanted them to be loose, more like pants rather than fitted tights. *sigh* Even if I did just keep on going and leave them as tights, I doubt they would fit him for much longer.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

I have finished both kid's hats =D I'm in the middle of doing a scarf for Ella to match her hat and I was going to wait until that was done before I posted pictures but I'm too impatient! No scarf for Jayden because he pulls it off after 3 seconds. He loves his hat though!! He fell asleep wearing it today but it fell off while he was asleep and when he woke up he was frantic trying to find it to put it back on his head.

It's funny how in my last post I said that next time I'd do some ribbing at the bottom and that I would use bigger needles, and then I went and made the exact same hat again without ribbing and without bigger needles =p It does curl up a little bit without the ribbing but I still like the way it looks.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I haven't posted in here much lately because I don't really have any completed projects. I do have several WIP's though so I thought I'd update about one of them. This is going to be a hat for Ella (I hope!! haha)

This is my first time knitting with circular needles and I have to say, youtube has been a GODSEND. I typed in 'knitting on circular needles', clicked on the first interesting video that came up and it taught me everything I needed to know. Before I started I looked at the needles and thought 'How on earth does this even work??" but once I got started it was really easy and I can say I'm now 100% in love with circular needles. I'm only 1/4 of the way through though (if that) so that may change haha.

I've already came across a few things I'll do differently next time though. Firstly, knitting on 4mm is not for me! I only started it this morning and already I'm frustrated at how slowly it's going. I do love the effect of the tiny little stitches though so I think it will be worth it. Secondly, next time I'll do some ribbing first to stop the brim from curling up so much. I'm hoping that once the hat is actually on her head it won't curl as much, but I really have no experience with this so I have no idea how it will look.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to! (one of the things anyway) Hopefully in the next few days I'll make some progress that's worth posting about.

Monday, May 24, 2010

This little skirt was made using the leftovers from my big quilt. I'm almost out of cupcake fabric now :( I don't think I like the striped waistband, I should have done the whole thing in the cupcake fabric I think, although it does break it up a bit. I'm undecided!

Chocolate ice-cream + clean child dressed in white = disaster! Minutes after this photo was taken she dropped a big glob of chocolate on her t-shirt and by the time she'd finished eating it she had it smeared all over her face lol. Luckily the skirt was unharmed!